Jim Geraghty has some insight into the new “Tea Party in Name Only” line of thinking from Jamie Radtke, who is eager to show a united front against Tea Party groups either holding out for Bob Marshall or swinging towards George Allen. Needless to say, Geraghty weighed the charge in the balance, and found it… wanting…
Really? If a Virginia conservative prefers Allen — with his lifetime ACU rating of 92, NRA-rated “A,” rated 0 by NARAL, rated 0 by the AFL-CIO, Balanced-Budget-Amendment-backing, rated 100 percent by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, abolished parole as governor, etc. — that somehow renders a person “Tea Party in Name Only”?
Of course, this reaction to the Daily Caller piece isn’t limited to a few. A new blog consisting of mostly Radtke supporters and borrowing heavily from the Red State brand (nice touch, eh?) has chosen to label Bearing Drift as — wait for it — an establishment Republican mouthpiece.
The same Bearing Drift that houses members who spearheaded the charge against HB 3202, criticized and challenged in elections the Chichester tax hike in 2004, called Allen out on macaca, took on sitting chairs at RPV, and endorsed non-establishment candidates in many of the 2010 primary election races — all establishment pros.
I’ll leave out for a second the fact that most of these newbies accusing others of being TINO were somewhere else during these tax fights.
That’s right — they were A.W.O.L. while most of us were in the trenches getting our hands dirty, long before the Tea Party movement was a twinkling in the eye of these newcomers.
I’ll also leave out that many of these characters are not conservatives, but rather libertarians who claim to speak for the entire Tea Party movement in Virginia. They are pro-gay marriage, pro-abortion, pro-drug legalization, and have leveled their sights on social conservatives, which one commentator deems to be the “Christian Taliban” in Virginia.
…which means conservative stalwarts such as Bob Marshall, Ken Cuccinelli, Mark Obenshain, Rob Bell, Steve Martin, Mark Cole, Bill Janis, Kirk Cox, Bill Bolling, Bob McDonnell and a host of other conservatives who have fought this battle for years… are also one of these establishment types.
Worse, they are claiming to be the voice of the Tea Party. And the Tea Party is (1) libertarian, (2) anti-establishment, (3) anti-GOP, and most importantly (4) can only be supporting one candidate — Jamie Radtke.
Huh?
Of course, this isn’t anywhere near the case. Bob Marshall is a great conservative and has been a lodestar in the House of Delegates for years. Bishop Jackson is a friend to every social conservative cause known in Virginia. Corey Stewart (though I profoundly disagree with his solution on illegal immigration) is a 100% pro-life and anti-tax conservative. Are these men TINOs?
George Allen’s record as governor of Virginia was nothing short of outstanding, and while I disagree with some party line votes (Medicare, ethanol, etc.) it’s not going to take long for folks to realize that Allen is the first to recognize that he screwed up… and if his recent appointment of Mike Thomas as campaign manager is any indication, he’s loaded for bear and ready to fix it.
Going back to the NRO piece, Geraghty points out that there is a clear division in the Tea Party between the more experienced voices and the political novitiates:
Thank goodness the Tea Party’s message can be carried by political newcomers and outsiders like four-term state legislator and former Speaker of the Florida House Marco Rubio; Justice Alito clerk, Supreme Court litigant and counsel to Gov. Jon Huntsman Mike Lee; former IRS lawyer and three-term state legislator and three-term House member Michele Bachmann; three-term Congressman and two-term Senator Jim DeMint, and the son of a congressman and leader of an anti-tax organization for 16 years, Rand Paul.
Is Rand Paul a TINO? Rubio? Lee? Bachmann? DeMint?
Let me tell you what a TINO is. TINOs are libertarians cloaking themselves in the small government movement, and bringing the ills of the near-defunct Libertarian Party with them. TINOs seek to push off against those who have fought against the Leviathan… and claim for themselves the mantle of the conservative movement in an effort to co-opt the Tea Party for financial gain.
I know for certain that Jamie Radtke would never align herself with the likes of Kurt Feigel, who advocated sending nooses to public officials and advocated violence as a possible solution for political woes, whose notoriety in Tennessee politics earned an invitation to a one-on-one MMA fight. This man invited people to show up to Tom Perriello’s home… and shortly thereafter, Perriello’s brother discovered cut gas lines.
“I don’t think that there are enough trees or rope in Washington DC to handle all the traitors you would find there.” In a YouTube video, the blogger ominously warns, “I hope it doesn’t come to us having to do what we all think is coming with these guns, but you better be ready if it is.”
Liberals often comment about the stereotype of a Tea Party member: racist, violent, and irrational.
Is this your Tea Party? Because this isn’t my voice in my Tea Party.
I want the most minimal government possible, free minds, free markets, and a free society. 100% pro-life, run and supported fiscal conservatives my entire political career, and have walked the talk as an elected official myself. Am I now a TINO because I don’t square up with the arch-libertarian fringe? Seriously?
The time may very well come when conservatives are going to have to put down the libertarian revolt. They have co-opted the Tea Party and are desperate to buy a candidate in the U.S. Senate race. Beltway insiders urgent to either stamp out or control the Tea Party are making headway into doing precisely that. In Virginia, they are already making their first moves.
Worse, they are perfectly content to push out small government conservatives in the name of the Tea Party — a voice they have not earned and do not have.
Someone is trying to spike the tea.
Guns. Nooses. Cut gas lines. Is that what the Virginia Tea Party is about?
I doubt it. Not with my voice. Not in my Tea Party.
